Worse yet for AMD it departments buying servers barely know AMD exists. Then throw in the fact that something like 90% of x86 server workloads are virtualized...and you can't mix and match Intel and AMD in a VMWare environment. That makes switching a lot more work than just swapping Intel for Intel. So a marketing strategy of "we are just as good as Intel" won't work. They have to have something that is compellingly better.

To top it all off, in the x86 world, even servers are commodity boxes. Dual socket servers with boatloads of cores and RAM are only running us $10k. Its not like the desktop world where you can price a CPU $50 cheaper and call it a "value". Nobody cares. It's just a very tough market to break into.

Diamond Member

Worse yet for AMD it departments buying servers barely know AMD exists. Then throw in the fact that something like 90% of x86 server workloads are virtualized...and you can't mix and match Intel and AMD in a VMWare environment. That makes switching a lot more work than just swapping Intel for Intel. So a marketing strategy of "we are just as good as Intel" won't work. They have to have something that is compellingly better.

To top it all off, in the x86 world, even servers are commodity boxes. Dual socket servers with boatloads of cores and RAM are only running us $10k. Its not like the desktop world where you can price a CPU $50 cheaper and call it a "value". Nobody cares. It's just a very tough market to break into.

But you kind of contradict yourself in the last paragraph. Calling them commodity boxes and bringing up $10k boxes with lots of cores. AMD wins hands down in the category most small to medium business care about. Core and memory density. So for "throwaway servers". You need less of them from AMD. Most of these are going to be more flexible in terms of server assignments and load balancing. On small business any VM server updates is probably a replacement for previous systems. In fact its kind of the point across the board. We tend to look at what people are running now and looking at what it would take for them to upgrade. But you have to look farther back. One company could be running 20c 2s servers right now and looking for an update. The Big guys are probably running an activation sever on site. The need more cores and more threads and more memory the choice becomes easier. A 2s server with 64 cores 128 threads and the same memory would be half as much (8k for cpus) as a 48c96t solution from Intel (16k for CPUs). That extra cost isn't something to ignore. Then add density, like a goal of upgrading your current 100c200t setup to 1000c2000t, You would need to get 5 more additional servers for Intel. Just in CPU costs that would be 128k vs. 336k, that doesn't include the extra chasis and component costs.

On a single component level these are pretty disposable and you would want to worry about a mid term swap of a defective box. But anyone doing a refresh or mass overhaul would be looking at cost differences to large to just overlook.

No one expects AMD to come in knock Intel out of servers. But realistically big or small money does matter and it shouldnt be hard for AMD to come in swinging and pick up an important market-share.

Senior member

But you kind of contradict yourself in the last paragraph. Calling them commodity boxes and bringing up $10k boxes with lots of cores. AMD wins hands down in the category most small to medium business care about. Core and memory density. So for "throwaway servers". You need less of them from AMD. Most of these are going to be more flexible in terms of server assignments and load balancing. On small business any VM server updates is probably a replacement for previous systems. In fact its kind of the point across the board. We tend to look at what people are running now and looking at what it would take for them to upgrade. But you have to look farther back. One company could be running 20c 2s servers right now and looking for an update. The Big guys are probably running an activation sever on site. The need more cores and more threads and more memory the choice becomes easier. A 2s server with 64 cores 128 threads and the same memory would be half as much (8k for cpus) as a 48c96t solution from Intel (16k for CPUs). That extra cost isn't something to ignore. Then add density, like a goal of upgrading your current 100c200t setup to 1000c2000t, You would need to get 5 more additional servers for Intel. Just in CPU costs that would be 128k vs. 336k, that doesn't include the extra chasis and component costs.

On a single component level these are pretty disposable and you would want to worry about a mid term swap of a defective box. But anyone doing a refresh or mass overhaul would be looking at cost differences to large to just overlook.

No one expects AMD to come in knock Intel out of servers. But realistically big or small money does matter and it shouldnt be hard for AMD to come in swinging and pick up an important market-share.

I'm assuming from your comments that you have probably never actually upgraded a VMWare environment. And I'm not really in the mood to educate you when there is so much documentation available. But here are the basics. Note I'm not taking about a home lab with free Dadi servers. This is assuming you have shared storage an virtual center.

Assume you have 4 servers in a high availability configuration:
1. Turn on enhanced VMOTION which lets different generations of Intel processors (or different generations of AMD processors but NOT mix AMD and Intel) coexist in the same environment.
2. VMOTION everything off then first old server and pull it from the rack
3. Put in the first new server, install Dadi and join it to virtual center.
4. VMOTION VMs onto the newns4rver
5. Repeat 2 through 4 three more times
6. Turn off enhanced VMOTION since you are back to a homogeneous environment.

It is no exaggeration to say I've done this in half a day, in the middle of the work day with zero down time. But if you are switching processor brand, enhanced VMOTION won't work and you have vastly complicated your life. It's way easier to stick with the brand you have, whichever that is....but for the vast majority that means Intel.

Also, past history has been that when you look at the price of the whole server, not just a CPU, there has generally been little difference between the two.

Diamond Member

I'm assuming from your comments that you have probably never actually upgraded a VMWare environment. And I'm not really in the mood to educate you when there is so much documentation available. But here are the basics. Note I'm not taking about a home lab with free Dadi servers. This is assuming you have shared storage an virtual center.

Assume you have 4 servers in a high availability configuration:
1. Turn on enhanced VMOTION which lets different generations of Intel processors (or different generations of AMD processors but NOT mix AMD and Intel) coexist in the same environment.
2. VMOTION everything off then first old server and pull it from the rack
3. Put in the first new server, install Dadi and join it to virtual center.
4. VMOTION VMs onto the newns4rver
5. Repeat 2 through 4 three more times
6. Turn off enhanced VMOTION since you are back to a homogeneous environment.

It is no exaggeration to say I've done this in half a day, in the middle of the work day with zero down time. But if you are switching processor brand, enhanced VMOTION won't work and you have vastly complicated your life. It's way easier to stick with the brand you have, whichever that is....but for the vast majority that means Intel.

Also, past history has been that when you look at the price of the whole server, not just a CPU, there has generally been little difference between the two.

Well there are tons of solutions and Vmotion isn't exactly even the largest of the major VM solutions out there. My point was that moving from one server solution to another wasn't an issue though I understand how intermixing can be. My point is if you migrate the issue isn't that bad (it would just result in the system requesting new activation from the Key server).

But the other point is that on small and medium sized businesses the generally aren't add on purchases. These are replacement systems that include growth for the next several years. On larger companies where they are added as opposed to replaced. The solution is simple. A new pool using these servers. Most of the time you are going to do that anyways. By location. By configuration. By department usage. By task. When buying VM machines like this you are making major shift changes or adding new services to your current infrastructure. Segregating that implementation isn't much of a hassle.

Look at Microsoft. Biggest cloud VM server provider and launch partner of EPYC. If they couldn't cost effectively implement the system in conjunction with their current offerings then they would be doing it and just like these Cloud VM services the extra VM encryption and security segregation can be a boon for businesses where they have to grant administrative control of VM's to other departments.